German Language and Culture Need Saving

Everyone and everything seems to need a hero these days.

Even a language needs saving these days. A language that carries and portrays the essence of a culture had seen the dangers of dying during these glorious technological times of innovation.

This is what the cultural language institution, the Goethe Institute, wants to share with the world in their new campaign to disseminate the German language.

Although Deutsche or the German language is still spoken in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Alsace-Lorraine (France), Northern Italy, East-Belgium, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein, the Goethe Institute believes there are now less native speakers of the language.

This is such a serious work. This is a task that should be carried on with all passion and attention. Nevertheless, to reach out to a wider audience, adults and teen-agers alike, the Goethe Institute made a hero epitomised by good-natured, level-headed, middle-aged, geeky Hermann and his hero alter ego German.

Hermann is Goethe Institute's answer to the U.K.'s Mr. Bean, with his silly adventure to save his friend, Peter Mayer and pretty German-speaking fraulein Marie.

Hermann and his alter ego German defeats evil Lord Vakuum and saves Marie with the use of a tongue-twisting language trick that can only be pronounced with the correct German diction and vocabulary.

Refreshing and retaining the Deutsche language to be an effective tool in commerce and trade is a Herculean task to face. The Goethe Institute recognises the big tasks ahead but hopeful to make it through and allow the German language and culture to flourish along with that of the other European nations in the near term.

Goethe Institute simply wants German born immigrants to still know the language of their Vaterland  (Fatherland) by heart and mind. They would want a response to the question: Sprechen sie Deutsche? (Do you speak German?) to be Ja, ich spreche ausgenezeichnet Deutsche  (Yes, I speak excellent German). And not common Ich verstehe das nicht (I don't understand) phrase.